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<TITLE> CS384G Course Description</TITLE>
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<H2> CS384G - COMPUTER GRAPHICS - Fall, 1995</H2>
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<DT><B> Time:</B>
<DD> TTh 3:30-5:00
<DT><B> Place:</B>
<DD> Welch Hall 2.310
<DT><B> Instructor:</B>
<DD> Don Fussell
<DT><B> Office:</B>
<DD> Taylor Hall 4.120
<DT><B> Phone:</B>
<DD> 471-9719
<DT><B> Email:</B>
<DD> fussell@cs.utexas.edu
<DT><B> Office Hours:</B>
<DD> TTh 5:00-6:30 pm or by appointment
<DT><B> TA:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Office:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Phone:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Email:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Office Hours:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Location:</B>
<DD> TBA
<DT><B> Recommended Text:</B>
<DD> Foley, van Dam, Feiner and Hughes
<DD><I> Computer Graphics, Principles and Practice</I>
<DD> Addison-Wesley
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<DT><B> Grading:</B>
<DD> Exams - 50%
<DD> Projects - 50%
<DD> no other graded homework
<DD> All grading is on a modified curve, in which natural breakpoints
<DD> between clusters of numerical scores determines letter grade.
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<H3>COURSE DESCRIPTION</H3>
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This is an introductory course on the major topics in the areas of
image synthesis, interactive techniques, geometric modeling, and
computer-based animation.  The material covered includes (1) basic
principles of operation of raster graphics display devices and common
two dimensional input devices, (2) basic algorithms for creating and
manipulating two-dimensional raster objects, including BitBlt
techniques, scan conversion methods for line segments, circles and
polygons, filling algorithms and simple anti-aliasing schemes, (3)
homogeneous coordinate transformation techniques, (4) parallel and
central projection and perspective transformations, (5) common
algorithms for clipping including Cohen-Sutherland, Sutherland-Hodgman
and Liang-Barsky, (6) hidden surface removal, (7) basic
light and reflectance models for local illumination, (8) Gouraud and
Phong shading and basic texture and bump mapping, (9) principles of
ray tracing, (10) basic parametric object modeling, including Bezier
and B-spline curves and surfaces, (11) basic interaction and
user-interface techniques, (12) principles of hierarchical modeling
and (12) principles of device-independent graphics software
architecture.

<P>

Grading will be based on two exams, a midterm and a second exam given
on the last class day, and a series of implementation projects which
will be assigned through the semester.  The exams will emphasize the
ideas, principles and mathematics behind the material covered and will
not involve writing code fragments.  Persons taking this course on a
pass/fail basis need not take the exams.  For these students,
successful completion of the projects will determine the course grade.
Project submissions will each include a code listing and a written
project description, which will include a description of the software
architecture of the system and a user's guide.

<P>

Programming may be done on any departmental workstation or, subject to
prior instructor approval, on other machines accessible to the
student.  This year we have a new graphics and multimedia teaching
laboratory in Painter Hall 3.120 with 20 Pentium workstations running
Solaris.  This lab will be used only by students in this course and
the multimedia systems course, and so will be more accessible than
public workstations for project use.  The lab is for course use only.

<P>

Grading involves interactive demonstrations of the programs
by the students, so any machine used will have to be available for
demonstrations of have an accessible counterpart on which we can do
the demos.  We will assume students are familiar with Xwindows or
whatever alternative GUI programming environment they plan to use.
The course will not concentrate on teaching the use of Xwindows or any
other windowing environment in detail, however.  Any programming
language/environment is acceptable, provided the instructor or TA is
familiar enough with it to evaluate the project.  This should be
checked in advance if the student wishes to employ any potentially
exotic technology.

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I highly recommend the use of the OpenGL graphics library or its
equivalent as a basis for image synthesis in these projects, as this
is rapidly emerging as the industry standard 3-D graphics library.
The public domain Mesa package, which provides an OpenGL-like set of
libraries for 3-dimensional image generation, is available for your
use in the lab and on the departmental SUNs and IBM X-terminals.  This
package is publicly available to those who wish to use it on private
systems (see the <A HREF = http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html>
Mesa Home Page </A>). I have successfully installed it on Linux-based
PCs, and there are versions available for Windows and for Macintoshes
as well.  In addition, many vendors provide OpenGL for their own
platforms, and commercial versions for a variety of platforms are
available from <A HREF = http://www.portable.com> Portable Graphics </A>
and <A HREF = http://www.tgs.com> Template Graphics </A>.

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